The
Hecatonchires do not reproduce as do other, organic races. They in fact do not
know or care how they reproduce. They are. They always will be. Should the race
fall, their places shall be taken by a new generation of Hecatonchires who will
walk up out of the lava of Hecate, fully cognizant of all their race has
accomplished since the last successful Transcendence, due to the
Hecatonchire’s Group Memory. Weapon plans, city layouts, starcraft designs,
all of these and more reside within the Group Memory of the Hundred Handed.

The minds of the
Giants are strange. Each consists of five-lobes, and once every two hundred
years, a different lobe of the brain becomes active according to a very
deliberate cycle. The different phases of the Great Hecatonchire Cycle are
described below:

MILITANT
PROSPECTING (WAR): The Giants, girded for war, set out to take control of the
richest area of precious resources that their Seers can find. The destroy
anything that stands in their way between them and their prize.

MERCHANT
BANKERS (MERCHANT): The new goal for the Hecatonchires is profit. They seek to
produce and trade goods made with their abundant resources, stockpiling profits
to fund the next phase of their race.

GALACTIC
ARTISANS (ARTIST): The next lobe of the Hecatonchires’ brain lends itself to
aesthetics and creativity. With their fractal arms, they now turn from counting
coins to expressing truths and making works of artistic merit. They travel
widely, teaching the principles of art both to educate and learn from those they
pass in their wanderings. This all refines their mind for the next step…

UNIVERSAL
PHILOSOPHERS (THINKER): The Giants now rest on their laurels and turn inwards.
Their culture funded by trade and art from past phases, their minds similarly
enrichened, they begin to contemplate the secrets of existence, of Truth, and of
Sentience. If any innovation to future phases of the same cycle occurs, it is
through the rethinking of Hecatonchire civilization during this phase. Success
at this phase propels them towards their true goal.

TRANSCENDENCE
(OMEGA): The Omega, of which almost nothing is known. When the Hecatonchires
reach this phase, the racial memory is cleared of all experiential data, leaving
only the most basic of technological information…